A Certain Age. Lynne Truss

Four: in the stationary car, with windscreen wipers going and heater fan

      I rang Steve’s Mum to tell her what had happened. She got hysterical at once, so I was glad I rang her from Bath-sheba’s. I said she ought to hold fire on the anniversary party stuff just in case Steve hadn’t shown up by then. She couldn’t seem to take it in; she kept asking, “But where’s he gone?” and I kept having to explain that when someone’s disappeared nobody knows where they’ve gone; that’s the point of disappearing. In the end I said I’d ring her later. But it was obvious we should cancel the party: imagine we were passing round the mushroom vol au vents and the police turned up to say they’d found Steve’s mutilated body or something. It would be like something out of a book. Or what if we turned it into a memorial tea, and he turned up? I sound like I don’t care. I do care about what’s happened to Steve; I’d hate him to be hurt or unhappy or dead. But after twenty-five years of living with him I just know he’s all right. He’s playing at something, and I just don’t know what – perhaps he’s trying to test me. Drive me over the edge with worry, like when we’re halfway to Malaga and he’ll say, “You OK now, Henny?” and I say, “I’m all right if I don’t look out of the window,” and he says, “I’ve just thought, Henny, I don’t want to worry you, but what if the regular milkman, who knows we’re on holiday, is suddenly struck down with flu? And then there’s a botched handover at the dairy and the replacement doesn’t know we’re on holiday, and leaves a pint of milk every day, and then the burglars spot all the bottles and they break in and take the telly?” Then we’ll spend the rest of our holiday with me saying, “Look, I’ll ring the dairy, I can easily get the number,” and him saying to people, “Can you believe what my wife is worried about?” and them all looking at me and laughing.

      Mr and Mrs Bryan called me in this afternoon from the Egdon Pleasure Park (the swings) and said the police had been round asking questions about me. “You realise we had to tell them everything we knew,” said Mrs Bryan, bless her. She put a pay envelope on the desk, which was very odd because it was only the 17th, and said, “Would you like some time at home, dear? It must be hard to concentrate under all this strain.” For a minute I couldn’t think what strain she was referring to, and then I said, “No, I’m feeling fine, actually, apart from where that little boy at the Gabriel Oak Experience wielded his stake too far back and banged me in the eye.” But Mr Bryan looked at the pay-packet, and folded his arms and didn’t look at me. I realised they wanted me to go home, so I thanked them and took it, and got in the car and here I am. It’s the first time I’ve been upset, to be honest. [Sounds upset] I feel like one of those sheep with all the air let out. It’s not fair. All the time Steve was around I managed to keep my nice job; the minute he goes, and I’m free to enjoy it at last, my nice employers send me home.

       Scene Five: home

      I’ve been trying to read Tess of the d’Urbervilles again this afternoon, but it’s a bit hard going. Not because of the story, actually, although I can’t say I like it very much, the introduction says it’s full of all these big dramatic ironies, and as Steve would say, “Well, that’s not entertainment, is it?” No, it’s the names. I mean, Angel Clare? Down the village you can get a very nice doggy perm and manicure at the Angel Clare. Why did the Bryans send me home? I can’t believe they were so upset by the visit from the police, and anyway I don’t see it’s my fault that Steve’s run off – or banged his head, or suffered the nasty living flesh thing. DS Law says now he’s been gone four days they can check to see whether he’s left the country, apparently they’ll know later on today. I feel guilty that I don’t miss Steve. I think that’s why everyone’s so suspicious, thinking I’ve bumped him off or something, because I’ve been so light-hearted. In fact, now I think of it, didn’t Mrs Bryan come in yesterday when I was demonstrating the Gabriel Oak thing to the kiddies – stabbing that stake into that sheep – and really enjoying it? “Take that!” I was saying. [Grunts of quite violent effort] Uff! Oof! Uff! It was just after that she called me in and sent me home! Oh heavens! She thinks I stabbed Steve! Stabbed him until he flew around the room going [blows raspberry]. [Serious] It’s funny, I’ve spent so much of my life worrying with Steve about things that don’t happen, now something has really happened I feel I can’t worry about it, as if I’ve done all the worrying already. It’s only when I think, [moved] oh, Steve might never see the new biscuit tin—

      I told DS Law, I thought I had to, that Steve did often say animal rights people might come after him for his job at the lab, and how he checked under the car for bombs. I felt very disloyal saying it; Steve feels so strongly that no one should know. But once I’d said it, and the DS was so surprised his jaw dropped, I started thinking, oh lumme, I must have made that up, it’s very peculiar, isn’t it? But the truth is, we’ve been checking under the car for years. Just common sense, Steve said. Self-protection. The threat of terrorism was just part of our lives – the house alarm, the mirrors on sticks for looking under the car, the perusal of the papers every day for stories of animal rights activists, the decision never to have children in case they were used as hostages or left orphaned. I mean, the very day Steve disappeared he’d cut a piece out of the Times about a senior research scientist in Denmark whose wife had been abducted. It does happen, I said. DS Law stopped writing it all down in his notebook, put down his pen, took a biscuit, and said the point is, though, Steve is not a senior research scientist, he’s a lab technician. At the Fawley Research Centre, where he works, there are at least 150 people who are more likely to be targeted than Steve. And I said, [brave laugh; it’s a shock] “I know that! Good heavens, I know that!”

      I’ve been turning the place upside down looking for the passports, and of course I found stuff I’ve been hoarding – my degree certificate and this, my letter admitting me to the civil service. And suddenly, all these years of living like, like mice in the skirting board, just came over me in a wave, and I sat here, and I thought, [quite upset; not angry, but sad] spit, that was my life, Steve. What’s happened to me? Twenty years ago I was on a fast track in the Home Office, and now I can’t keep a job in a petting zoo. Now I agree with you and your mum about my “MTs” and having no willpower whatsoever, and I keep it a secret if I find joy in anything, so my husband can’t say I’m unbalanced. No children. Didn’t we work and worry strenuously to avoid children? And of course it never helped the mood exactly to have Steve breaking off to run downstairs to check the fridge was shut. And it was me who wasn’t normal, apparently. I’m beginning to wonder what normal is, Steve. I’m beginning to think it’s not really normal to sweep your front lawn for landmines.

       Scene Six: home, happy music

      It was just after DS Law left that it all happened. I was putting the biscuits away in the cupboard and I saw the old biscuit tin, and I thought, “Now, what am I going to use you for?”, so I picked it up and opened it and inside there was this letter from Steve with my passport and quite a lot of cash in used notes. He had stuck a note saying “Don’t Lose” on the passport and sealed up the letter in an envelope.

      “To my wife,” it said on the outside. “Urgent. Private. By hand.” I turned over the envelope to open it and found on the back “Destroy After Reading”. I opened it. I sat down. This had better be good, Steve, I thought. “Dear wife,” it said. “This evening, June 15, I returned home from Fawley’s at the usual time and found no sign of you. Alert to the Danish experience in this morning’s Times, I naturally fear you have been abducted according to the same pattern; I also fear that if you have been abducted, they are really trying to get to me, so I am leaving immediately for Our Special Place, and hope you will join me there to prove my fears are groundless. However, if you do not follow me within three days I will conclude you are lost to me, even dead, and will remain abroad. I will place this letter in the biscuit tin as I know from twenty-five years’ experience that reaching for the biscuit tin is always the first thing you do, my dear wife, having no willpower whatsoever. Buy your ticket with CASH. Check under the car VERY CAREFULLY. Steve. Above all, don’t WORRY, I know what you’re like.”

      I rang DS Law and told him. He said they’d just confirmed Steve had taken a flight to Malaga – our special place – but that otherwise they had no information. “You realise your